Milk Street, Boston

Last updated October 20, 2024

Milk Street is a street in the financial district of Boston, Massachusetts, which was one of Boston's earliest highways.^[1] The name "Milk Street" was most likely given to the street in 1708 due to a milk market at the location, although Grace Croft's 1952 work "History and Genealogy of Milk Family" instead proposes that Milk Street may have been named for John Milk, an early shipwright in Boston. The land was originally conveyed to his father, also John Milk, in October 1666.

Buildings on Milk Street

Old South Meeting House at the corner of Milk and Washington where Milk Street begins
Central Wharf and its warehouses, and the New England Aquarium, at the waterfront end of Milk Street
Flour and Grain Exchange Building at Milk and India streets
The King Building at 120 Milk Street, built 1894 as a bank and now an apartment building^[3]
International Trust Company Building, built 1892–1893, at 39–47 Milk Street
The John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse occupies a block bounded on one side by Milk Street, which also defines one side of Post Office Square and the block occupied by the One Post Office Square skyscraper

Historical places and former residents

Benjamin Franklin's birthplace is on Milk Street.^[1]
Boston's historical Newspaper Row district includes 5–23 Milk Street. The defunct Boston Post newspaper was headquartered at 15–17 Milk Street.
The United States Post Office and Sub-Treasury Building, demolished 1929, now the site of the John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse
Julien's Restorator, a pioneering late-18th- and early-19th-century restaurant, was at Milk Street and Congress Street. Julien Hall, now demolished, was built on the site in 1825.
J. L. Cunningham, auctioneer, worked in Corinthian Hall at Milk Street and Federal Street, 1826–1843.
Benjamin Dearborn, mechanical inventor, lived on Milk Street.^[4]
Abram French ran a crockery business on Milk Street in the 19th century.
David Claypoole Johnston, artist, kept a studio on Milk Street in the 19th century.
Nineteenth-century engraver Ephraim W. Bouvé's studio was on Milk Street.
Instrument-maker Thomas Appleton (1785–1872), partner of Alpheus Babcock, had his workshops at 6 Milk Street; and a successor company, the Franklin Music Warehouse, was also on Milk Street.
The American Humane Education Society, publisher of Black Beauty and Strike at Shane’s, had headquarters at 45 Milk Street.

Subway connection

The closest subway stop to Milk Street is State station.

Related Research Articles

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Long Wharf is a historic American pier in Boston, Massachusetts, built between 1710 and 1721. It once extended from State Street nearly a half-mile into Boston Harbor; today, the much-shortened wharf functions as a dock for passenger ferries and sightseeing boats.

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New South Church (1714-1866) was a Congregational Unitarian church of the "New South Society" in Boston, Massachusetts, located on "Church Green" at the corner of Summer Street and Bedford Street. Pastors included Samuel Checkley and John Thornton Kirkland. In 1814 architect Charles Bulfinch designed a new building for the society; it was demolished in 1868. The congregation merged with the New South Free Church in 1866.

William Gibbons Preston was an American architect who practiced during the last third of the nineteenth century and in the first decade of the twentieth. Educated at Harvard University and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he was active in Boston, New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, New Brunswick and Savannah, Georgia, where he was brought by George Johnson Baldwin to design the Chatham County courthouse. Preston stayed in Savannah for several years during which time designed the original Desoto Hotel, the Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory and 20 other distinguished public buildings and private homes. He began his professional career working for his father, the builder and architect Jonathan Preston (1801–1888), upon his return to the United States from the École in 1861, and was the sole practitioner in the office from the time his father retired c. 1875 until he took John Kahlmeyer as a partner in about 1885.

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Court Street is located in the Financial District of Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to 1788, it was called Prison Lane (1634–1708) and then Queen Street (1708–1788). In the 19th century it extended beyond its current length, to Bowdoin Square. In the 1960s most of Court Street was demolished to make way for the construction of Government Center. The remaining street extends a few blocks, near the Old State House on State Street.

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Congress Street in Boston, Massachusetts, is located in the Financial District and South Boston. It was first named in 1800. It was extended in 1854 as far as Atlantic Avenue, and in 1874 across Fort Point Channel into South Boston. Today's Congress Street consists of several segments of streets, previously named Atkinson's Street, Dalton Street, Gray's Alley, Leverett's Lane, Quaker Lane, and Shrimpton's Lane.

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Julien Hall was a building in Boston, Massachusetts, on the corner of Congress Street and Milk Street. It flourished 1825-1843, housing a variety of public events such as lectures by Red Jacket, William Lloyd Garrison; temperance meetings; political meetings; auctions; exhibitions of live animals, portraits by William James Hubard, John H. I. Browere; performances of the "automaton chess player" and the "panharmonicon;" and so on. By 1842 boxer John Sheridan had converted space in the hall into an athletic gymnasium.

Julien's Restorator (1793–1823) was a restaurant in Boston, Massachusetts, established by French-born Jean Baptiste Gilbert Payplat dis Julien. It was one of the first restaurants in Boston; previous public eating-rooms were in "taverns or boarding houses."

The John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse, formerly the United States Post Office, Courthouse, and Federal Building, is a historic building at 5 Post Office Square in Boston, Massachusetts. The twenty-two-story, 331-foot (101 m) skyscraper was built between 1931 and 1933 to house federal courts, offices, and post office facilities. The Art Deco and Moderne structure was designed in a collaboration between the Supervising Architect of the United States Treasury Department and the Boston architectural firm of Cram and Ferguson. It occupies a city block bounded by Congress, Devonshire, Water, and Milk Streets, and has over 600,000 square feet (56,000 m²) of floor space. The exterior of the building is faced in granite from a variety of New England sources, as well as Indiana limestone. It was built on the site of the 1885 United States Post Office and Sub-Treasury Building.

Central Wharf is a historic pier in Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1815–1816 between Long Wharf and India Wharf, it originally extended from India Street nearly a quarter-mile into Boston Harbor. Today, the much-shortened wharf serves as the home of the New England Aquarium.

The United States Post Office and Sub-Treasury Building was a public building on Post Office Square in Boston, Massachusetts. Built in the late nineteenth century, it was the first post office building in the city to be owned by the United States federal government. The John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse now stands on its former site.

References

1 2 3 "The New England Magazine" v. 12, Making of America Project (New England Magazine Co., 1895)(accessed July 4, 2009)
↑ Samuel Adams Drake, Old landmarks and historic personages of Boston (Roberts brothers, 1876)(accessed July 6, 2009 on Google Book Search)
↑ "120 Milk Street". AAA Corporate Rentals. Retrieved May 7, 2017.
↑ Massachusetts Mercury, January 13, 1797

Images

1723 map of Boston, showing Milk St. and vicinity
Apothecary, Milk St., c. 1825
Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It, 1860 overview photo by J.W. Black, showing Milk Street and vicinity

v t e Streets and squares in Boston
East–west streets	Beacon Street Boylston Street Commonwealth Avenue Congress Street Court Street Day Boulevard Dedham Parkway Fenway Gallivan Boulevard Huntington Avenue Melnea Cass Boulevard Milk Street Neptune Road New Chardon Street Newbury Street Park Street Soldiers Field Road State Street Storrow Drive Summer Street Tremont Street Winter Street
North–south streets	Arborway Atlantic Avenue Blue Hills Parkway Bowdoin Street Brattle Street Brookline Avenue Charles Street Columbus Avenue Dorchester Avenue Enneking Parkway Federal Street Franklin Street Hanover Street Jamaicaway Jersey Street (Yawkey Way) Massachusetts Avenue Morrissey Boulevard Morton Street North Street Park Drive Riverway School Street Truman Parkway Turtle Pond Parkway Union Street Veterans of Foreign Wars Parkway Washington Street West Boundary Road West Roxbury Parkway
Intersections	Adams Square Andrew Square Blackstone Square Brigham Circle Central Square Chester Square City Square Cleveland Circle Codman Square Copley Square Day Square Dewey Square Dock Square Downtown Crossing Egleston Square Fields Corner Franklin Square Haymarket Square Hyde Square Jackson Square Kenmore Square Louisburg Square Mass and Cass Maverick Square Nubian Square (Dudley Square) Packard's Corner Park Square Peabody Square Post Office Square Roxbury Crossing Scollay Square Sullivan Square Thompson Square Union Square Uphams Corner Winthrop Square
Italics denote streets and squares that no longer exist. See also Neighborhoods in Boston Transportation in Boston